NEW YORK'S Mayor Michael Bloomberg, during his brief visit to Jamaica on Sunday, pointed out that both New York and Kingston have a problem of illegal guns on their streets. The similarity of the problems runs even deeper.
In quite a few cases, as our police will tell us, some of those same guns find their way from New York to Kingston and, in criminal hands, resulting in grievous consequences for innocent law-abiding citizens.
Mayor Bloomberg showed his grasp of the problem when he pointed out that "sadly, the world is becoming internationalised not just in commerce but in crime as well".
True, and that is why his suggestion to establish a partnership between his city and ours is so welcome, because with the increasing globalisation of crime, only joint efforts such as this can contain it.
Mayor Bloomberg, a practical businessman in his own right, runs a city with some quarter of a million employees and a budget of millions of dollars.
His suggestion to extend to Jamaica his city's tradition of placing personnel in other countries to improve security and communication is as commonsensical as it is timely.
He has already proven his commitment to improving public safety in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and elsewhere in the USA, displaying not only a vision of where New York should go but the practicality of getting it there.
As the proposed partnership grows, Kingston and indeed Jamaica, could benefit much from Mayor Bloomberg and New York City in terms of crisis management and a leadership that motivates, inspires and encourages a citizenry to be confident in their abilities to get things done while resolutely championing justice for all, as it relentlessly pursues and punishes the guilty.
We are confident that with the personal relationships established between the leaders of the two cities and the follow-up by the Police High Command, the linkage between New York City and Kingston will redound to the social stability and public weal of two great cities.
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